The Irredeemable Origins & Legacy of Asperger
Who was the man behind the diagnosis? How Hans Asperger’s eugenicist-based research shapes the modern perception of autism.
Asperger’s today is synonymous with high functioning autism. For decades, brainy people with poor social skills were diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a “milder” form of autism. Over the past few years, Asperger's syndrome has been removed from most diagnostic manuals, including the DSM-5. Why?
Discourse surrounding the validity Asperger's as a diagnosis and identity tends to forget the etymology of the word. Aspergers as a subcategory of autism originated in 1981, long before the sinister details of Hans Asperger came to light. To understand why autistic people and the psychiatric field are distancing themselves from Asperger’s, we must first understand the man behind the name.
Third Reich Pandering
Throughout his career that spanned from the 1930s to the 1970s, Austrian paediatrician, Johann “Hans” Asperger specialised in mental disorders in children. As a child and adolescent, his behaviour reflected traits of a disorder that would later be named after him, such as introversion, a special interest in quoting poetry, and proficiency in learning languages. During the Second World War, Asperger’s home in Vienna was overtaken by Nazi Germany. Around this time, he published a paper on his area of research: Autistic Psychopathy in Childhood.
“We are convinced, then, that autistic people have their place in the organism of the social community. They fulfil their role well, perhaps better than anyone else could, and we are talking of people who as children had the greatest difficulties and caused untold worries to their care-givers. […] Unfortunately, in the majority of cases the positive aspects of autism do not outweigh the negative ones. – Hans Asperger
Like many disabilities in Nazi society, autism had no place. Those who were non-verbal or otherwise blatantly autistic, were sterilised and most often put to death. At the other end of the spectrum, “Autistic Psychopathy” was Asperger’s own term for what we now know as Asperger’s syndrome or high-functioning autism. Asperger noted that the boys he studied who fit this criteria had “a lack of empathy, little ability to form friendships, one-sided conversations, intense absorption in a special interest, and clumsy movements”.
Neither of these categorisations were flattering, but Asperger argued that the intelligence of the latter could be exploited for a greater good. As for the former, Hans Asperger willingly sent the more disabled autistics to the Am Spiegelgrund clinic. There, he knew they would be tortured in experiments and eventually euthanised as part of the Aktion T4 mass murder of the ill and disabled.
Dichotomising ‘High’ and ‘Low’ Functioning
Hans Asperger received more recognition through posthumous legacy than he did in life. Therefore, in the 1980s and beyond, researchers of autism who retrospectively considered the work of Asperger portrayed him as pioneering figure.
“It seems that for success in science or art, a dash of autism is essential.” – Hans Asperger
Despite the positivity this quote radiates, it demonstrates the problem that is the foundation of Asperger's syndrome: the dichotomy of “high” and “low” functioning autistics. The autism spectrum is understood by many as a binary scale between “not autistic” to “severely disabled by autism”, with Asperger’s Syndrome somewhere in the middle. This small “dash of autism” in people with Asperger's is what gives them superior focus and dedication without rendering them intellectually disabled.
This is a misconception.
Autism is not quantifiable. It cannot be measured in severity. No two people experience autism in the same way, but the spectrum is multifaceted. The binary spectrum of less to more autistic, is oversimplified and misleading.
The labels of high and low functioning are based on how obvious a person’s autism is on an external level. In line with the research of Hans Asperger, this likely correlates with how useful and intelligent the autistic person is. These labels give no insight into the internal experience of autism.
As autism consists of differences in the areas sensory processing, emotional regulation, socialisation, and behaviour, every autistic person will experience these in different ways and severities. These areas also are complex within themselves. For example it is common for one autistic person to be over sensitive to some sensations and under sensitive to others. Also, many autistic people struggle to communicate the emotions that they feel intensely and may not express their emotions through facial expression and body language in conventional ways. This means they are likely misunderstood as unempathetic and robotic based on their lack of external expressions.
In terms of autism as a personal experience, this complexity leaves room for more than two combinations.
For Hans Asperger, the first-hand experiences of his autistic subjects and their emotional well-being were not points of interest.
Today, the labels of low-functioning autism and high-functioning Asperger's serve as a bitter reminder of a time were being autistic meant either extermination or exploitation. It feeds the mentality that the worth of autistic people is still based upon their ability to serve allistics.
Skepticism
“The autistic personality is an extreme variant of male intelligence.” – Hans Asperger
His cherry picking of “functional” autism went deeper than perceived intelligence and verbal capabilities. Girls were excluded. Jews were excluded. Non-white autistics were excluded. Autistics with other disabilities were excluded. Regardless of how bright or well-spoken you were, if you were autistic and anything but a white male who fell in line with the Nazi ideal, you were put to death.
While the eugenics and genocide that took place under Hilter’s rule are now widely condemned as monstrous, it is ingrained in how we view autism today. Autism, especially Asperger's, is diagnosed on narrow, stereotyped behaviour. This is because the pioneer researchers of autism focused their studies exclusively on young, white boys. As a result, how autism presents in girls, adults, and people of colour is misunderstood, if not erased entirely.
Many researchers, including Asperger, have theorised that autism is an exclusively male disorder. Statistics show that autism effects more males than females. What this actually means is that boys are more likely to be diagnosed. Women are often diagnosed later in life, if at all, once years of masking results in poor mental health. This can put the back-handed compliment of “too high-functioning” into jeopardy when the burnout hits.
Even professionals today are baffled by any autistic who doesn’t fit neatly into the high or low functioning brackets. The trouble is, no one does. Those who are deemed high-functioning have been conditioned to make acting non-autistic their fulltime unpaid job. This is known as masking.
In His Defence
Standing for disabled people under the Nazi regime would have been a risky, near impossible challenge. The fact that Hans Asperger attempted this perhaps lead to the misconception that he was the antithesis to the society he lived in. Some argue that Asperger did all he could for some autistics; sacrifices had to be made but more autistics would have died if he hadn’t bothered.
Also, at no point in his research did Asperger suggest that autism could be separated from a person born with it or that it should be cured. This stance would eventually become integral to the neurodiversity movement.
‘Not everything that steps out of line, and thus “abnormal”, must necessarily be “inferior”.’ – Hans Asperger
However, he still enabled the sterilisation of disabled children as a preventative measure. The only autistic demographic Asperger protected were savantly intelligent, Aryan boys, at the expense of everyone else.
It’s difficult to determine whether Asperger’s support of the Nazi party was genuine or performative since Nazi regime relied on indoctrination and authoritarian rule to keep its citizens in check. Whether Asperger was a Nazi at heart or if his support was just a front to protect himself, it ultimately doesn’t matter. Political pressure does not make enabling the genocide of so many children morally sound. Sympathetic, apologetic attitudes towards what Hans Asperger did under any circumstances are an insult to those who suffered and died because of him.
Hans Asperger studied autistic children through the lens of their future in Nazi society. Therefore, any salvageable aspects of his research must be viewed with awareness of the inextricable eugenicist biases.
Other Immortalised Charlatans
Autism is a broad, complex spectrum that is not yet fully understood. This made it a perfect boogieman in the late twentieth century for charlatans to spread moral panic about autistic children as an epidemic. Along with many others, Asperger sits in this category as a debunked intellectual who is still taken too seriously. He won’t be forgotten any time soon, but it is time we questioned his validity.
To name a few would include discredited scientist Andrew Wakefield and his pseudoscientific linkage between vaccines and autism. Despite there being no scientific validity in his stance, his campaign fuelled the anti-vaccine movement through the demonisation of autism.
Likewise, Autism Speaks, a charity that is meant to be for autistic people, is dedicated to spreading the narrative that autism is a scary, burdensome disease that will possess your child and ruin your marriage, comparing it to AIDS. Despite the years of opposition from autistic adults, Autism speaks continues to suggest that autistic children need to be corrected through therapies proven to be traumatising. The most well known charity “for autism” is a hate group in disguise.
From long-dead researchers, discredited scientists, and sham charities, the voices of those spreading unproven conspiracies about autism are the loudest. It seems that any opinion on autism, no matter how far fetched, will be believed unless it comes from autistic people themselves. Whilst being silenced by these external misconceptions, autistic people must reap the consequences of ineffective (often abusive) therapies, discrimination, and lack of professional support.
Our lives will only improve once the misinformation is discarded and the voices of those who experience autism first-hand are prioritised.
Moving On
There may be aspects of Hans Asperger’s work that we can learn from, and much of it formed a foundation for autism research in decades since. His research cannot be entirely discarded due to his irredeemable motives and beliefs.
However, what Asperger discovered about autism should not be deemed conclusive seventy years on. Modern psychiatry should look back on his work with a critical eye to distinguish his biases that were a product of his time. The current social perception of autism (including how autistic people see themselves) is deeply ingrained with the research of Asperger. Unfortunately, eugenics, utilitarianism, white-supremacy, and pseudoscience are at the heart of this research. So long as we validate the work of Asperger, his legacy will continue to harm autistic people as he did in life.
The removal of Hans Asperger’s namesake disorder from these diagnostic manuals marks a step in the right direction. The distinction of “Asperger’s Syndrome” from “autism” was always based upon a false binary that grouped autistic people based on their external displays of intelligence and normalcy. The removal of this subcategory means more recognition of the internalised struggles of those who were once deemed “high-functioning” autistics. Likewise, the removal of Asperger (as in the person and as the label) means that those deemed “low-functioning” autistics can be recognised as having agency and potential that was once dismissed due to their non-verbal communication.
Ultimately, distancing Asperger from autistic people marks the beginning of a more fluid, empathetic perception of autism. This perception acknowledges a multifaceted middle-ground where we are no longer ranked based on superficialities and how much our autism is visible (and useful) to others.
Too much funding has been wasted in researching causation and cures of autism instead of discovering how to make our lives easier. In autistic advocacy and research going forward, there must be more focus on the first-hand experience of autistics as individuals, not on the external observations on autistic test subjects.
References & Further Reading
- Asperger H; tr.; annot. Frith U (1991) [1944]. “’Autistic psychopathy’ in childhood”. Autism and Asperger syndrome. Cambridge University Press.
- Baron-Cohen S (8 May 2018). “The truth about Hans Asperger’s Nazi collusion”. Nature. 557 (7705): 305–306
- Boseley, Sarah (2010), “Andrew Wakefield case highlights the importance of ethics in science”, The Guardian.
- Connolly K (19 April 2018). “Hans Asperger aided and supported Nazi programme, study says”. The Guardian.
- Czech, H. Hans Asperger, National Socialism, and “race hygiene” in Nazi-era Vienna. Molecular Autism 9, 29 (2018).
- Lyons V, Fitzgerald M (November 2007). “Did Hans Asperger (1906–1980) have Asperger syndrome?”. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 37(10): 2020–1.
- Frith U (January 1992). Autism and Asperger syndrome (First ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 2
- Willingham, Emily (2013). “Why Autism Speaks Doesn’t Speak For Me”. Forbes.
- Wing, Lorna. “Asperger’s Syndrome: a Clinical Account.” Psychological Medicine, vol. 11, no. 1, 1981, pp. 115–129
